Partner meeting in Bolzano, Italy

May 23rd and 24th, 2018.

CONNECT2CE partners committed to providing efficient, coordinated services linking all publictransport systems in Central Europe!After two successful meetings, CONNECT2CE partners met for the third time in Bolzano (Italy) on 23rd and 24th May. The meeting was hosted by our Italian partner, Accademia Europea Bolzano
(Eurac) in their Conference Hall.

The CONNECT2CE project aims at tackling the weak accessibility of regional, peripheral and cross-border areas of Central Europe to and from main transport networks and hubs as a consequence ofwhich rural population is steadily decreasing and rural and peripheral areas are sparsely populated.
The main goal of the CONNECT2CE project is to improve the capacities of the public sector in CentralEurope to provide efficient and coordinated services in order to efficiently plan peripheral and cross-border public transport systems.

The meeting was divided into two parts: the first day project partners held a technical meeting where they presented progress in their respective tasks. Partners discussed about the completed and upcoming activities regarding transnational tools, pilot actions and toolboxes that will be used, in the
end, as a basis for drafting 10 territorial strategies for improving regional and cross-border public transport accessibility in Central Europe.

The second day, partners had a technical and a seminar session where they focused on management and communication activities of CONNECT2CE project. Also, a case study of South Tyrol was presented. Mr Patric Dejaco and Mr Roberto Cavaliere provided an overview of public transport system in South Tyrol, which is a good example of efficient and coordinated services that we can learn a lot from.

The project is funded by the Interreg Central Europe programme. The partnership consist of the Central European Initiative - Executive Secretariat (Lead partner) (IT), European Academy of Bolzano/Bozen (IT), Udine Cividale

Railways Company Ltd. (IT), Gyor-Sopron-Ebenfurt Railway Corp (HU), HZ Passenger Transport Ltd. (HR), KTI Institute for Transport Sciences Non Profit Ltd (HU), Institute of Traffic and Transport Ljubljana l.l.c. (SI), Regional Authority of the Pilsen Region (CZ), Regional Management Burgenland Ltd. (AT), Slovenian railways-Passenger transport Ltd (SI), Sistemi Territoriali Ltd. (IT), Intermodal Transport Cluster (HR and, Public transport authority Berlin-Brandenburg (DE).

The total budget of the project is 2.702.282,20 EUR and the duration of the project is 3 years (01.06.2017 - 31.05.2020).